Reclaiming a commonwealth, and other essays, by Cheesman A. Herrick

Preface

The following essays are the outgrowth of occasional addresses and three magazine articles. All are educational in character. '' Reclaiming a Commonwealth " appeared first in The Outlook, and '' The Keystone of Power '' in The Metropolitan Magazine. Both, however, have been rewritten and considerably enlarged. Certain observations based on a visit to European schools have been incorporated in the essay last named. Taken together they constitute a discussion of some important phases of educational tendencies and of present-day interests.

No attempt has been made to prepare a treatise. Though considerable investigation has been necessary for some of these studies, the effort has been to avoid the effect of a " contribution." If the mode of treatment has made the essays less scientific it has possibly made them more readable. Should the book bring to those into whose hands it falls pleasure at all comparable to the pleasure that has come from its preparation the author will be highly gratified.

The writer is pleased to acknowledge his indebtedness to Professor William H. Mearns for his suggestions on several of the essays in manuscript, to Mr. Patterson Du Bois for a careful reading of all the manuscript and the proof, and to Principal W. D.

vi PREFACE.

Lewis for his reading of the proof. Lucien Hugh Alexander, Esq., was good enough to supply much of the material for the essay on '' Professional Ethics " and to read in manuscript this essay and the related one on "A New Commercialism." If the book has escaped errors and is free from faulty presentation it is due to the many helpful suggestions of these friends.

C. A. H.

Girard College.

Contents

PAGE

Reclaiming a Commonwealth . i

The Nestor of American Schoolmasters 96 vii

I. Reclaiming a Commonwealth

North Carolina was long considered the standing example of illiteracy and educational inefficiency. In a scientific study of education as late as 1900 she was placed with the lowest expenditure per capita for schools, and the lowest productive power per capita. A recent Governor of the State, and a group of men with whom he labored, proclaimed to the people of North Carolina from the tide-water regions to the mountain fastnesses, that theirs was the poorest State in the Union in dollars and cents, and the most illiterate save one.

Knowledge of the North State's part in the Civil War is necessary to understand her subsequent educational history. Attendance upon a State reunion of Confederate veterans at Greensboro taught a little of how great had been her sacrifice, how complete her subjugation. Broken and aged men, the shadow of their former selves, and of the armies in which they served, wore in their hats what they called a brag feather of the Tar Heels Brigade which recited their record, " First at Bethel, Foremost at Gettysburg, Furthest at Chickamauga, and Last at Appomattox." North Carolina, it should be further said, furnished largely in excess of her proportion of the Confederate army; from a war population of 141,000 she sent to the field 127,000, and of these 40,000 were lost.

But the loss of men was not all; infinitely greater were the wasted wealth and the crushed spirits of a people proud and brave. When the war was over, the special fund for the support of schools was gone, and the school-houses were deserted. The work of Calvin Wiley, former State Superintendent of Schools, closed with Sherman's occupation of Raleigh. To Sherman war meant hell ; to North Carolina it meant illiteracy.

When the war closed the University of North Carolina was without occupation. School organization and school support had disappeared. Hopeless indeed was the outlook; material needs were considered first. It was ten years before the State University reopened her doors ; but at once she began to work mightily for the educational renaissance of the State. In the first three classes were the recent Governor, Charles B. Aycock, on fire with educational enthusiasm ; the present progressive State Superintendent of Public Instruction, James Y. Joyner, and Edwin A. Alderman, President successively of the University of North Carolina, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia, brilliant as an orator, and whose addresses present with convincing force that education of the whole people is the supreme need of a democracy. To these should be added the not less important work of another alumnus, the late Charles D. Mclver, in the establishment of industrial training and the training of teachers, and as Secretary of the Southern Educational Board.

University of North Carolina men, headed by Alderman and Mclver, were leaders in the summer institute movement, and graduates of this institution have assumed the superintendencies in more than one-half of the graded schools of the State. A considerable proportion of the county superintendents of schools are also from the State University. Any institution of the world might well be proud of the work of the younger as well as the older alumni of the University of North Carolina. Let it be said to her credit that with her University, North Carolina has been working out her own educational salvation ; and already her influence has extended throughout the South and to the nation at large. One, writing from Boston in the Educational Review for December, 1907, tells that it is to the " illiterate " Southern state of North Carolina that we must go to find educational methods in practice which are superior to those being practiced in the North. North Carolina is believed by this writer to have reached high ideals in several directions : she has never permitted sectarianism to become an issue in the control of her schools; North Carolina has centralized her education, giving economy and efficiency of administration; this State is leading in improved architecture for rural schools; and, finally. North Carolina is believed to point useful lessons in wise and safe educational experimentation.

The educational abyss from which the State has arisen is shown by the testimony of the Hon. John C. Scarborough, who became State Superintendent of

Schools in 1877. There were then no institutions for the training of teachers, no provisions for teachers' institutes, and the Legislature, lest the Board of Education should exercise its general powers, had by law prohibited it from securing a clerk for the State Superintendent, or allowing him any money for traveling expenses.

Much preliminary work had been done, but down to 1900 progress was slight. A new qualification for electors was to be fixed in that year, and the man for the occasion was the standard-bearer of the majority party, Charles B. Aycock. Intelligence was the watchword of the campaign; a provision before the people was that no one, white or black, coming of age after 1908 should be allowed to vote unless he could read and write.

"Adopt this provision," said Aycock, " and if I am elected Governor it will be my chief aim to give every child in North Carolina the opportunities for an education." The wisdom of universal education was most convincingly presented, and partisan issues were largely ignored. " If you do not want more attention to education," said the frank and fearless candidate, ''don't vote for me." Aycock himself made one hundred and eight speeches in that campaign, and his work was supplemented by others who took the keynote from their leader. The pledges of the candidate were widely printed in the press, but he was not content with this, and had his platform struck oflf in circulars and these distributed. As might have been expected, Ay cock was chosen by a handsome majority, and, best of all, he was as good as his word. '' Redeeming the pledges " he termed his action. In season and out he preached the gospel of a new educational dispensation. The State levy for educational purposes was largely increased and the Governor worked directly and indirectly for additional local taxation. Marked progress was made in the following directions : improvement in the character of the schools, the introduction of the graded-school system into the smaller cities and villages, and the subdivision of larger districts so that schools are within reach of all. Governor Aycock lost no opportunity to speak to his people on his chosen theme, and he was most skillful in suiting his messages to special occasions. One of his speeches at the county-seat of a remote mountain county was said 'to be typical. Waynesville, in the Blue Ridge valley, was to unveil a memorial tablet to the founder of the town. Announcements of this event stated that the Governor would be present and deliver an address. It was to the whole region a day of unusual interest, and the inhabitants for miles around thronged the streets. As the gathering was a representative one of the '' mountain whites," one might well be curious to see how the educational Governor would be received. The exercises were held in the court-house, where all the available space was early occupied. One anxious visitor who happened to be a little late spent fifteen minutes in trying to get within hearing distance, and failed. The address and its effect were little short of wonderful. From first to last, the words were of a man who knew his subject, and believed in it; who knew his auditors, and believed in them. The response showed that the hearers respected the speaker and that they respected his message.

The speaker began by reference to his former appearance on that platform, and to the promise then made, that if he were elected there would be furnished the best possible education for every boy and girl in North Carolina. '' My election," he continued, " made my pledge that of the people of the State, and we became co-laborers in a great work." With true art, the belief was expressed that every man, in the assemblage had voted for him, or if there was one who did not, he already was sorry for it. " I come to you, then," he said, '' to give an account of my stewardship, and to ask that you keep faith with me by doing your part in the stupendous work of furnishing educational opportunity to all."

The occasion was made to teach its lesson; the founder of Waynesville had been a Revolutionary soldier, and the part of North Carolina in the Revolution, from the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence to the campaigns of Green, had a brilliant setting. Local pride was appealed to ; it was west North Carolina that saved the " State of Franklin " to the Union, and Waynesville played an important part in that work. The marksmanship of Carolina riflemen received its meed of praise for service in the Second.

War with Great Britain, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. In courage and heroic endeavor, the Governor declared his people to be second to none. " Indeed," he asserted, " North Carolinians are the best people in the world when they are doing the things they have been trained to do." The greatest shame to a North Carolinian, it was affirmed, was to be a coward, and the greatest disgrace to turn his back.

North Carolina was then boldly declared to be the poorest State in the Union, and the most illiterate save one. '' God bless South Carolina!" said the speaker; " she has got us into a good deal of trouble, but she saves us the ignominy of being the most illiterate of States." Next the question was asked, '' Why are you so poor? Is it because you are lazy? Yes, you are lazy. Is it because you are thriftless? Yes, you are thriftless. Is it because you are lawless? Yes, you are lawless; but you are neither more lazy, nor more lawless, than your neighbors. North Carolina is poor because she is illiterate. Massachusetts is i;ich, so rich that it sounds like a dream ; but Massachusetts has furnished splendid educational opportunities. The trouble with North Carolina has been that we have too long depended on the education of the few. In our widely separated communities it has been, and is, difficult to bring education within reach of all; but the future welfare of the State depends upon this being done."

The speaker devoted himself to the proposition that the strength of a state can be adequately measured by the average intelligence of its people, dwelling on this as it affects both political and industrial life. His illustrations were most pointed and convincing. " When you buy manufactured articles/' said he, '' you buy them from Massachusetts, and you pay for labor worth four dollars a day; but you pay in the products of your own labor, which is worth fifty cents a day. Now, what does this mean ? Why, that you must give eight days of your labor for one day of that of the man in Massachusetts. This is because Massachusetts has taught her people to work, and North Carolina has not. Not that I urge a mere increase in wages," he continued; ''doubling the wages of the people of North Carolina would not double our wealth ; what we need is an increase in the efficiency of our workers. We need the application of intelligence to our work. In the Patent Office at Washington there is one patent for every 900 citizens in the United States at large, but there is but one for every 24,000 in North Carolina." Education was found to be knowing and doing something, and the man who knows and does the things that the times demand was declared to be something.

After disposing of universal education as a general proposition and showing the folly and shortsightedness of educating the few, the Governor spoke of the education of negroes. The one criticism urged against Charles B. Aycock was that he favored taxing white people to educate the blacks; but he declared that his plea for universal education in 1900 meant the education of the blacks, and further, that when he said intelligence should rule, he did not mean to exclude the intelligent black man. Haywood County, in which the Governor was speaking, had about six hundred negroes in a total population of over sixteen thousand, and the sentiment was strong against the white support of schools for blacks. The discussion of negro education before that audience was like handling fire over a powder magazine.

After the orator was thoroughly^^/^ rapport with his audience, and his sentiments had been again and again applauded, he concluded a brilliant period with the statement, '' Yes, and . I believe in the education of niggers!" This was uttered with measured deliberation and intense feeling. The audience was awed. The speaker paused for the effect of what he had said, and noting disapproval, he added : '' I perceive that I have created a gulf between myself and my audience; but," with deep intensity, *' my — fellow-citizens, — you — ^believe — in — the — education — of — niggers !" The mountaineer admires courage, and probably nothing but the Governor's fearlessness saved him from being hissed.

One could but admire the skill with which Governor Aycock had captured the strongholds of ignorance and illiteracy; but when he rode full tilt at the fortifications of race prejudice, the seeming self-interest of his audience, and the traditions of over two hundred years, it seemed too much ; one feared for the outcome. But the speaker was equal to the task. He began :

''You believe in the education of a mule; he isn't worth much until you break him ; he must be educated to work; he will bring no return and be a source of expense until he is trained. You take your setter-pup or your fox-hound and school him; he would do more harm than good until he is educated. Now," added the Governor, '' I think more of a nigger than I do of a mule or dog, and the reasons for educating a mule or a dog hold to a greater degree for educating a nigger. Intelligence and trained skill of our black men are necessary," he continued, '' for the material welfare and political security of our State." This was supplemented by a discussion of true and false education, illumining and convincing. A powerful plea was entered for the education of hand and mind, of white and black. The education that North Carolina needs, it was said, is that which shall train men to keep contracts inviolate, and which shall lead them into, not away from work.

The rest of the speech was directed toward removing the prejudice against local taxation for schools, and to inducing the people to make use of the educational facilities offered. The conclusion was reached, and presented with power that '' the best money spent by any community is that spent for schools," and those from the local communities were urged to go home, call a meeting, and petition the proper officials for authority to place an extra levy for school purposes. The Governor said that the compelling power of public opinion must get and keep the children in school, that the State had no compulsory educational law, and could not enforce one if it did have it. A burden of responsibility was laid ujDon the teachers to get children to school ; the whole community was commissioned a vigilance committee to see that the youth did not grow up in ignorance. Withering was the arraignment of the man who whittles a white-pine stick at the cross-roads while his wife and children are making a living for themselves and him. '' No man who respects himself/' it was said, '' ought to speak with such a one; tell him to go to work; to get his wife into the home and his children into the school, and then to come back and you will talk with him." The speaker hoped that he would yet see the men of North Carolina at work, the women in the homes, and the children in the schools. The ending of this appeal was : '' Oh, I wish there wasn't a white-pine stick in the universe ; we have spent fifty thousand years in North Carolina whittling white-pine sticks !" The speaker also expressed himself on the man who keeps his children from school because he says it will injure them to walk a mile or two to attend, but who at the same time compels them to carry corn three miles to a mill. The conclusion was a call for self-sacrifice and labor. "This is our business," said the Governor; ''education that we do not work for will do us little good. I would not accept schools as a free gift from a millionaire. I want the people of North Carolina to pay the price of education and then they" will appreciate what it means." While the call was to a difficult task, the

Speaker said he knew his people, and felt sure that they would not be found wanting. He had confidence in the unmixed and uncontaminated white race of North Carolina. As Governor, he bade his hearers join him in placing a school within the reach of every child of the State.

The logic of the speech was convincing, the earnestness of the speaker was irresistible, the response of the audience was spontaneous. Charles B. Aycock and those he modestly represented have been rehabilitating a State; they are building the broad foundations of universal education for the superstructure of North Carolina's political and economic future. Progress in recent years has been marked; already North Carolina can give a new account of herself. The per capita expenditure for education increased from sixteen cents in 1870 to fifty-one cents in 1 900, while the average earning power of the people more than doubled in the decade ending 1900; but this was only the beginning. North Carolina's expenditures for public education more than doubled in the six years following 1900, Mclver's ringing message for the support of schools deserves the widest currency :

Let us teach honestly and boldly that education is not only the best thing in our civilization for which public money can be used, but that, with the exception of ignorance, it is also the most expensive.

A systematic campaign for better school buildings was begun in 1902, and for years one new building a day was said to have been added to the State's equipment. The state department of education in North Carolina has taken active interest in the construction of modern buildings and has issued detailed information, giving plans of school-houses, specifications for materials, and estimated costs.

High schools as well as ungraded schools have felt the uplift of the new educational spirit of North Carolina. Among the many signs of progress is the appointment of a State Inspector of Public High Schools in 1907, and the evidence of his work in a special handbook for high school teachers, giving courses of study, lists of text-books and reference books, with discussions on various aspects of high school work.

The recent educational progress of North Carolina is built on the State's past. Governor Aycock frequently quoted from the Bill of Rights of the State Constitution :

The people have the right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.

In one of his speeches Aycock said in a characteristic passage: " I have carefully examined the public documents from Governor Vance down to the present time and I find that I have enunciated no new thought and have declared no new principle in advocating universal education. My vanity has been lessened by my study of what has been said in the past, but my devo-

Hon to the cause of universal education has been increased, and I trtcst that I am among those who are willing to sacrifice vanity to the good of the people/'

We note with extreme gratification that Governor Aycock's successors in office have shown themselves not unmindful of the privilege and the duty of the high position which he occupied, and that they have used every endeavor to further the worthy ends of educational reform. A statement from Governor Glenn, who was Aycock's successor, deserves a place in this essay :

Illiteracy, the twin sister to vice, is one of the greatest curses, and in itself is often the source of evil, while education is power, and shows itself in developing our industries as well as expanding our minds and elevating our morals.

From North Carolina have gone men and influences that have lighted the path of educational progress in other States of the South, and that also have been an inspiration to North, East, and West. The genial optimism and the likable personal qualities of Charles D. Mclver are as a benediction to the generation from which he has so lately been taken, and though his voice is stilled amongst us, he yet speaketh. Edward Alderman, in rare measure, combines solid executive capacity and commanding power as an orator. As president of the leading institutions in three states he has in a peculiar way upheld high ideals of manhood and citizenship, and best of all he has been sending out into the States trained leaders. Like Aycock, Alderman has rare gifts of speech, and these men rank among the most conspicuous examples in our generation of men with a capacity to state their case. Among the North Carolinians who have gone to teach the lessons of her progress in broader fields is Walter H. Page, whose democracy of education is contained in the brief statement: '' It is a shining day in any educated man's growth when he comes to see and to feel and to know and admit freely that it is just as important to the world that the ragamuffin child of his worthless neighbor should be trained as it is that his own child should be. Until a man sees this he cannot be a worthy democrat, nor get a patriotic conception of education." Not less important than the accomplishment of the foregoing is the solid constructive work of James Y. Joyner, since 1902 Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina. Others may have planted, but Joyner has tilled and harvested, and the new educational crop of North Carolina is a noble tribute to his insight, patience, and devoted labor. The National Educational Association did well to vote him its President in 1909.

This movement in North Carolina seems typical of a new constructive statesmanship in the South. Just at the close of the Civil War Robert E. Lee wrote to one who complained of the hard fate in store for those whom he termed '' us poor Virginians " : '' You can work for Virginia, to build her up again, to make her great again. You can teach your children to love and cherish her." The great Captain of the Confederacy waived outside business opportunity and political office, and gave his last years to what he regarded as the sacred cause of training the youth in order that there might be a greater state in the future. Students of conditions in the Southland assure us that there is the growth of a sober, balanced judgment, especially with regard to the events of the past, in dealing with the race question, and in planning for the future of the region. Through education the South is entering into the heritage of a sounder moral life, a more secure political organization, a more highly efficient economic system. All honor to the men who have worked and who are working to these worthy ends !

II. Education the Keystone of Power

In the dark days that followed 1789 in France there went through the streets of Paris a band of children bearing the banner of revolution with the motto, '' Tremble, tyrants, for we are growing up !" So, up and down the streets of our cities, and in and out of the lanes and byways throughout the land an army of children says, in effect, to the responsible men of the generation, " Tremble, masters, for we are growing up !" That the weal of the nation is linked with the training of the youth is a truism so often repeated as to seem like a platitude. Yet at times its force is revealed anew in the realm of morals or of pure intellect, or in the field of political or economic activity.

On every side there is agreement that under modern conditions, the geographical position and natural resources of countries as well as the native aptitude of people count for relatively less and less, and that it is supremely important for a nation to develop the power to utilize its resources and secure from the outside the things in which it is deficient. A desire to know how Americans can pay a dollar a day in wages where Englishmen pay but a shilling, while the American surpasses his English competitor in the open market, has sent to this country two commissions of English experts; and more recently Mr. Alfred Mosely, who brought these commissions, was of the opinion that an answer to his inquiry could be found only by sending a large number of British teachers to study the American nation at school.

" Whatever you would have appear in a nation's life, that you must put into its schools," is finding general acceptance; but this doctrine raises all sorts of questions. The most perplexing of these questions are, What should we have in a nation's life? and, when this is determined. How shall it be put into the schools? Schools both reflect existing national ideals and create new ideals. Thus a nation, through its schools, tends to perpetuate itself, and thus a system of education is born of the genius of a people. This is necessarily of slow growth, and deeply rooted in national traditions. There is no '' brand " of education that can be shipped from country to country, and applied to different peoples under diverse conditions.

But more than this, no single form of education is adequate for the complex life of one nation. And again a system of education, however elaborate, devised for one period, is not applicable to the people for whom it was devised in successive periods. Thus it is in the words of Milton,, that " education is the noblest design that can be thought on," and " for the want whereof a nation perishes."

Improved means of communication, the competition incident to the opening-up of new regions, the removal of national barriers, numerous international expositions where the results of education have been presented, these are some of the recent events which give special point to a consideration of what is the real basis of power in a modern nation.

EDUCATION AMERICA'S DOMINANT INTEREST.

In 1820, Daniel Webster proclaimed that every man should be taxed for the support of schools as a police protection, and this whether he had any children to be educated or not. From this time, interest in education has grown in the United States until it is the chief concern of our public administration and social effort. We agree with the statement made by an American man of letters, that the United States is the most common-schooled nation in the world. Yet, the common-schools, so-called, by no means circumscribe our educational activities. Schools to train for efficient life are found to be cheaper than almshouses, asylums, and prisons to care for the incompetent, the unfortunate, and the vicious. On every hand is coming to be accepted the sentiment which is writ large over a great institution in the American state which perhaps has done most for education, " The Commonwealth Requires the Education of the People as the Safeguard of Order and Liberty."

EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN ENGLAND.

Of late, education has been a foremost public question in England. The Government repeatedly made a school bill its principal measure, over which the public has been almost as deeply stirred as over Irish Affairs, the South African War, the Fiscal Policy, or any other measure of a decade. Back of the agitation that has accompanied the debates on the English school bills is the feeling that education is somehow unsatisfactory. Just why and how schools are bad, and what should be done to improve them, are matters of disagreement, but the English public knows that education is in need of revision.